


'cause I'm feeling like I might need to be rescued

by bowyer



Category: Being Human (UK), The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Mental Breakdown, Other, PTSD, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, brief homophobic language, of the brief variety, or something that wants to be anyway, the wip title for this fic was "trauma!fic"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowyer/pseuds/bowyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are a cocktail of breakdowns and flashbacks and hopelessness, but they're together.</p>
<p>(Gaia doesn't have bad days.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	'cause I'm feeling like I might need to be rescued

Gaia doesn't have bad days. Well, none out of the ordinary – sometimes she wakes up and hates the world and the men in her bed, but she's pretty sure that's normal for a twenty two – twenty one,  _fuck –_ year old woman.

 

She can't say the same for Anders and Mitchell.

 

\---

 

"Hello?" she calls as she unlocks the door. "Anyone home?" Anders  _should_ be home; if there's not god business (there isn't, and if there is and she's not been told, Idunn will make them regret it), he finished work an hour ago. But she doesn't get an answer.

 

Gaia dumps her bag on the table and rounds the corner. Anders, perched on the arm of the sofa, raises a hand briefly in greeting before pressing a finger to his lips. She's about to query – why's she to be quiet, where's Mitchell? – when she realises he's not alone on the couch. Mitchell's taller than the two of them, she doesn't know how she missed him, but he's  _so still._

 

There's an undertone she hadn't noticed before, a barely audible mutter in a hoarse Irish accent.

 

"What's going on?" she whispers as he presses a hand to the inside of her elbow in greeting. Mitchell doesn't seem to notice she's there. He doesn't even seem aware that  _Anders_ is there. "Is he ok?"

 

Anders shrugs. "Came back, he was like this. Watch," and he slips off the arm to scoot across. "Hey, Edward Cullen." He kisses the swell of Mitchell's bicep gently.

 

"Maybe he's just ignoring you," Gaia suggests with a tilt of her head, "Because you're a massive dick."

 

"He chose to move in with me," Anders fires back, reaching out a hand to tousle Mitchell's curls.

 

She can't tell what Mitchell's saying in full, but she's beginning to pick words out. "Forgive me father, for I have sinned," the vampire's voice rasps over the words, and she wonders idly if it hurts him to say these things, like it hurts him to touch her.

 

"Anders, I wouldn't," she says as he reaches out a hand to touch their – his – their (it's complicated, ok?) boyfriend again, an insistent poke like a child would. Call it women's intuition.

 

It's proven right almost immediately.

 

" _Deviant,"_ Mitchell snarls over the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

 

There is an ugly look on Anders' face as he spits blood, "Fuck this."

 

"Anders..." Gaia bites her lip. He jumps to his feet and moves to the kitchen, pouring himself an exorbitant measure of vodka and drinking most of it in one gulp. "It's not his fault."

 

"Whatever."

 

Of course. She rolls her eyes, torn between going to see Anders – who's still swigging vodka and using it to wash his mouth out – or stay within distance of Mitchell and his breakdown.

 

Anders is self-medicating and alcohol is sterile. She stays with Mitchell, taking deep breaths to stabilise Idunn. Mitchell has mentioned before, in one of their night conversations when they finish work at the same time and Anders has got bored of waiting and passed out on the sofa, that Idunn makes him feel better, warmer. She may not be able to touch him, but this she can do.

 

"Mitchell, it's me," she says, remembering what they'd been taught at the hospital, how to deal with patients who have – well, it reminds her of PTSD, the way he's acting, and she thinks  _how many wars have you seen?_ "It's Gaia, remember me?"

 

She keeps talking, aware of Anders' eyes on her, even if he doesn't do anything to help (fucking Johnsons).

 

"You missed it, at work today," Idunn is like a hot potato caught in her chest, pulsing gently with every breath she takes. "There was this diabetic kid – a baby, really – brought in because he couldn't stop throwing up and needed to be stabilised, and Dr Lancaster was his assigned, and –"

 

Mitchell's hands twitch, his head tilts a tiny amount. He's listening, then.

 

"He wasn't listening, and this kid threw up  _everywhere._ Lancaster was practically  _dripping_ with it."

 

"That's utterly foul," Anders tells her with a wrinkled nose. He's not moved any closer, but he's not moved any further away.

 

"You don't know the guy," Gaia falters as Mitchell turns his head. "He deserves everything he gets."

 

Mitchell's eyes are wet and raw, but he's meeting her gaze, even if he's shaking like a leaf. "Welcome back," she murmurs, reaching out to squeeze his denim clad knee quickly.

 

Anders takes a few steps forward, "Drink?" Uncertainty doesn't suit him. He's still tonguing his split lip.

 

"Fuck yes."

 

\---

 

It takes Anders three days to forgive Mitchell, and Gaia wants to smack him for most of it.

 

(She gets it, a little bit. It can't be fun being insulted like that, but it  _wasn't Mitchell's fault.)_

 

Mitchell solves it himself, in the kitchen with his hands on Anders' hips and low murmurs that make Gaia tempted to offer them the apartment for the night, and all is ok, mostly.

 

He sometimes still has days like that, but it's never as scary, and he never hits Anders again – but then, Anders never gets that close again.

 

\---

 

Gaia wakes up slowly on her day off. When it became clear that this – whatever it _is_ – was getting serious and she’d all but moved in with Anders and Mitchell, he’d sold his bed and got the biggest one he could find in replacement, but she’s not used to waking up without Anders pressed against her back and snoring quietly.

 

She rolls over with a groan, throwing out a hand. Her fingertips brush against a t-shirt clad chest that shifts away automatically. “Sorry,” she whispers without opening her eyes. Mitchell, still mostly asleep, grunts in response.

 

Anders is probably in the bathroom, she rationalises as she dozes off again. He can move her when he comes back.

 

Only – he doesn’t come back.

 

When she wakes up again, the room now bathed in morning light, the place next to her is still empty and Mitchell is still sprawled just out of reach.

 

“Mitchell?” she nudges the pillow he’s buried his face in. “Mitchell!”

 

“Wazzat?” Mitchell presses his face further into the pillow in protest.

 

“Where’s Anders?” the only response she gets is a snore. So much for help coming from _that_ quarter.

 

Gaia slides out of bed and reaches for a discarded hoodie that’s thrown against the dresser. It fits her nicely, so it must be one of Anders’. Yes, it’s definitely one of Anders’; he’d flung it at Mitchell’s head the previous night, she remembers with a grin.

 

A grin that fades as soon as she steps into the kitchen and sees Anders on his hands and knees with a bucket, scrubbing with a franticness that doesn’t seem quite – right.

 

“Mitchell’s being a lazy bastard,” she says lightly, to gauge the air. “Did you spill something?”

 

“Have to get it off,” Anders’ voice is choked and breathy, catching in his throat and this is not good and it doesn’t feel good and what the _fuck_ is happening? “Before she rots, I have to – I have to tell the police – it won’t go _away_ , it won’t –”

 

He dips his hands into the bucket of water next to him and Gaia realises with a growing horror that the water rivulets that run off his fingers are red.

 

“Mitchell!” she shrieks, regretting it immediately when Anders jumps at the noise and knocks the bucket over. She takes a deep breath and kneels down, catching Anders’ torn and bleeding hands. “Come on, come on.”

 

“What’s – oh shite,” Mitchell stumbles out of their bedroom and freezes.

 

Gaia gives him a helpless look. Anders won’t move from the floor, and he’s stronger than her; he rips his hands out of her grasp and goes back to scrub the floor. His hands are cracked and bleeding and red and worn. “Help me,” she mouths.

 

The vampire nods briskly, still in his pyjamas. “C’mon then,” he looms up behind Anders – the height difference between the two of them is only a head, but right now he looks a giant – and puts his hands under Anders’ armpits. He lifts him like one would lift a cat, and Anders goes about as gracefully, bloody fingers scrabbling at his smooth cement floor.

 

“Get _off_ me!” he shrieks, loud enough to make Mitchell cringe. Gaia sits back on her knees and stares at the soaking wet floor.

 

Mitchell’s one thing. She’s known, as long as she’s known him, known that he’s got issues and history and horrible things have happened.

 

Anders? Anders is her ex-housemate’s older brother _this isn’t supposed to happen_.

 

There are sounds of scuffling from the sofa, punctuated by Anders’ sobbing babbling – _let me finish, the police will be coming soon, there’s blood everywhere_ – and Mitchell swearing every time Anders manages to land a hit.

 

Gaia doesn’t want to go over there, where her sort-of boyfriend is having a full on breakdown over the death of her predecessor. She feels – awkward.

 

At the very least.

 

So she finds all the towels she can and layers them over the floor, soaking up the lukewarm water that Anders has got _everywhere_. There is more water than towels, but she does her best with what she’s got. And when that’s done, and Mitchell is still trying to calm a god of poetry who’s fighting like a trapped cat, she opens the cupboard nearest the sink and gets out their first aid kit.

 

“Hands – please,” she amends, Idunn hammering in her chest and desperate to get out. Anders’ eyes are blank, and it’s Mitchell that smooths out one of his hands – crooked and small – keeping him still with a firm arm around his middle.

 

Not only are they cracked and bleeding – and Gaia can’t remember what the protocol is when you get bleach in the bloodstream – there are suspicious looking burns up the backs of his hands.

 

“Cold water,” she taps Mitchell’s hand on Anders’ wrist briefly, and Idunn flares. Mitchell backs off. “I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

 

“Cold water,” Mitchell repeats, and he goes to get some.

 

\---

 

Anders sleeps throughout most of the weekend, only surfacing to rummage for food when he can’t hear anyone in the kitchen. Gaia and Mitchell give him his privacy, ducking behind the sofa when he emerges and shooting each other looks that would be wry if the situation wasn’t so tense.

 

It’s Sunday evening when he comes into the living space and throws himself onto Mitchell’s lap.

 

“Get _off_!” Mitchell squawks in surprise, the unexpectedly high pitch of his voice making Gaia laugh. “You weigh a _ton_ , you know that?”

 

“No I don’t,” Anders replies smugly, “You’re thinking of –”

 

“If you say your brother, we’re relegating you to the couch,” she breaks in, reaching across to ruffle his hair. He presses into her hand, and Gaia’s beginning to wonder if Bragi has a special affinity with cats. Perhaps one day they’ll wake up on that giant bed and there’ll be a cat between them.

 

A _very_ spoiled lap cat, looking at Anders.

 

“Which one can I mention?” he asks brightly, fingers incessantly rubbing at Mitchell’s stubble whilst the vampire bares his teeth but never moves to bite. His face is gaunt, his beard overgrown, but the storm-grey eyes that loom out from deep-set dark eye sockets are steady.

 

“None,” and she tugs his hair gently and reminds herself to text Dawn about this weekend, just in case.

 

\---

 

Gaia wakes from a dream where Axl and Jerome are going to tear her apart and Olaf steps in only to say _“I’ll solve this; let me cut her in half and you can both have her”_ and only in the movies do people sit bolt upright, but she comes back to herself all at once and shaking.

 

The bed is empty, and she wants nothing more than to roll over and go to sleep, with that bone-aching weariness of someone who can’t bear to see the day.

 

But every time she closes her eyes it feels like she has wasps under her skin, prying and poking and _stabbing_ her and Olaf’s laugh is still ringing in her ears and _she can’t sleep_.

 

There is, she thinks, something more than a nightmare at play here. It is the desperation that she woke up with a taste of on her second twenty first birthday, it is the fact that she _doesn’t have a choice_ in the rest of her lifeand she _might as well be a slave_.

 

After submitting to destiny once, Anders has diverted it with another man, and he will never be _hers_ alone and she doesn’t even _want_ to be his. She didn’t fall in love with Anders, and she’s never fallen in love with Anders, and he’s the _wrong brother_.

 

Gaia pushes her head under one of the pillows strewn across that giant bed and debates stopping breathing.

 

It’s at that point she hears the door open, keys jangling. “Anyone home?” Mitchell’s voice is muffled by the walls and door. She holds her breath. “Gaia?” he pushes open the bedroom door.

 

“Leave me _alone_ ,” she snaps through the pillow.

 

Mitchell doesn’t falter, humming as he busies himself around the bedroom. She hears the clink of his keys as they settle on the dresser and the sound his leather jacket makes as he throws it across a chair. His hand settles on her duvet covered shoulder and he smells of cigarette smoke and something intangible she can’t name.

 

“Gaia?”

 

She’s a horrible person and Idunn is worse. Mitchell snatches his hand away with a strangled cry as Idunn flares up with a violent edge, and she hears the door slam behind her.

 

She’s a horrible person.

 

Outside the door, she can hear Mitchell talking, but there’s no one in the house. “You should, yeah,” and she knows he’s talking to Anders because he has no friends in New Zealand.

 

The door creaks back open and the bed dips and Gaia burrows further into the covers. “Fuck _off_!” she snaps.

 

“Don’t laser me again,” it’s not quite an order, but it’s firm.

 

One of her hands is resting above the duvet, and it’s this hand that Mitchell takes, lying on the other side of the bed with enough distance between them. His woollen gloves are scratchy, and his fingers are cold but dry. It puts Gaia in mind of scales and coldblooded lizards.

 

Every so often, Mitchell twitches. He doesn’t try and talk, and Gaia is glad. She’d end up shouting at him, telling him to go away and find someone else.

 

(Because, at the end of the day, Anders may love Mitchell, but Anders is _hers_ and was _hers_ first and she doesn’t think he can fight a determined Bragi. Anders will always be hers before Mitchell’s and the whole thing leaves a nasty taste in her mouth.)

 

She stifles a sound – a sob or a scream or a victorious laugh, she’s really not sure – in the pillow as the front door opens again, slamming shut almost as quickly. The noise makes Mitchell jump, his hand tensing in hers.

 

“Dawn’s under the impression I left for lots of sex,” Anders announces to the silence and Gaia cringes because she couldn’t want anything _less_ , despite the way Idunn screams and snarls inside her.

 

The first thing Anders does is pry apart their fingers, and there’s no mistaking Mitchell’s sigh of relief.

 

“You’re more of an idiot than my family,” Anders informs him. Gaia peeks out from under the pillow she’s using to hide herself and feels sick when she sees the burn blisters on Mitchell’s fingers.

 

(She’s not a nice person. If she was, she wouldn’t hurt Mitchell just by holding his hand.)

 

Anders is watching her with his particular brand of annoying disinterest, and she burrows back into the bed until all they can see of her is a lump of bright fabrics and nothing else. His feet are pushed up against the bed, she can feel the indent where they’re resting.

 

The bed dips down as Mitchell climbs back onto it, lying beside her but not touching her. “I feel left out.”

 

“You chose to sit there,” the vampire at her back makes a movement that feels a little like a shrug.

 

“Because you were sprawled out like a – like deadly furniture!”

 

“Telling you what George has called me was a big mistake, wasn’t it?”

 

Gaia closes her eyes and lets the boys’ bickering lull her back to sleep.

 

\---

 

She doesn’t know how long she’s been asleep. They’re both still there, but Anders has taken his shoes off and is resting one on her stomach, rubbing it in small circles. Gaia can’t figure out if it’s comforting or not.

 

“If she was from back home, then…” Mitchell laughs, deep down in his chest and Gaia can almost feel it through the mattress. He affects a voice that sounds nothing like his normal voice and speak-sings, _“I’ve got a brand new combine ‘arvester and I’ll give you the key, I’ve got_ –”

 

She can’t hear the rest over Anders’ groaning, “So are all you Brits mental then?”

 

“Not a Brit,” Mitchell reminds him, “And Gaia’s awake.”

 

“Are you?” it takes a second for Gaia to realise Anders is talking to _her_.

 

The pressure in her chest has lessened slightly, and it’s enough for her to pull the pillow off her head and push herself up. “Yes,” she says, fingers combing through her hair (and it’s an unbearable mess and it’s going to be awful to try and detangle), and she eyes Mitchell and Anders as though they were her enemies.

 

Her glare fades when Anders pokes her in the stomach with one of his feet, “Morning.”

 

“Hi,” she can’t quite find it in herself to look up, “I’m still angry with you.”

 

“Whatever I did, I didn’t do it.” 

 

“If it’s because you couldn’t find any teabags, he hides them behind the fish food,” and Mitchell grins.

 

Anders’ jaw drops, “You _fucker_.”

 

His eyes will never be warm, because the steel-blue colour doesn’t tend to hold it. But he’s watching Gaia as though he understands. And she supposes, out of everyone who could, he’s the only one who does.

 

“There’s room for one more on here,” she says instead, and shifts over.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is bastardised from Jack's Mannequin's ["Rescued"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwuLm1HPpSY). I always interpreted the lyrics the way I've typed them, so that way they shall stay!
> 
> The song Mitchell sings is The Wurzel's ["Combine Harvester"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9rQmyAxS3U), and he shares my headcanon that a British Idunn would definitely be from the West Country because of the cider connection.
> 
> Mitchell reacts so strongly to Gaia's touch because of the way vampires are around religion: he's fine with Anders because Anders cares for him in his bizarre little way, but Gaia and Mitchell don't know what to make of each other yet.


End file.
